The 19 Most Wired iPhone and iPad Apps of 2010

Apple's iOS App Store hit the ground sprinting two-and-a-half years ago, and it hasn't slowed down. In 2010, programmers unleashed a plethora of high-quality apps for the iPhone and its brand-new big sibling, the iPad.

For Apple's tablet, many of the most impressive apps focused on the reading experience. That's not surprising, because what better to do with that big, beautiful screen? And for the iPhone, we saw some clever apps that made excellent use of the handset's always-on data connection, geo-awareness and camera.

With 400,000 apps crowding the iOS App Store, it's tough to choose what's worthy of a space on your screen. Here are Wired staff's picks for the best iOS apps of 2010. There may be a lot of useless apps out there, but these are worth downloading.

WordLens

If you're visiting a foreign country and haven't bothered to learn to read their native language, try whipping out the WordLens app. The app promises to translate words in real-time to the language you choose. (The basic app is free, but you have to pay $5 for each translation dictionary, e.g. Spanish-to-English or English-to-Spanish.) As it stands, the app isn't great at translating long blocks of text, but it's good for short translations, such as food items on a menu. We're more interested in the implications this app has for traveling in general. (Free, plus $5 per dictionary, download link)

Rdio

Online music app Rdio is awesome for a few reasons. You get streaming audio, but you can also pre-sync selected tunes, so if your 3G connection is super crappy (hey, like here in San Francisco!) you don't have to rely on that solely. Plus, with a Twitter-like system that lets you follow other Rdio users, it is a great way to discover new music through your friends. (Free, download link)

Pocket God: Journey to Uranus

Bolt Creative's Pocket God was a huge hit on the iPhone, and the game's even better for the iPad. You play the role of a god, possessing the power to screw around with an island of dwarflike creatures called pygmies. In this iPad version, Journey to Uranus, you get an entire galaxy to play with, so you can torment the pygmies on different planets, each one packed with minigames. It's a ton of fun for people of all ages. Five bucks in the App Store. ($5, download link)

Plants vs. Zombies

This tower-strategy game is a visual treat with hours worth of challenging stages. The objective is simple but addictive: Plant your, uh, plants in strategic places to fend off a horde of zombies from taking over your lawn. ($7, download link)

NPR

NPR's ambitious iPad app isn't just a speedier version of its website; it's actually better. Tap an article and an embedded player pops up below so you can listen to an audio reading or supplementary material while you read. A Share tab enables you to share an article by Twitter, Facebook or e-mail. (Free, download link)

Netflix

Unlimited streaming video for a few bucks a month? That deal almost seems too good to be true, and it's what makes Netflix a must-have on the iPad. (Free, download link)

MyWi

Available through the underground Cydia app store, MyWi is the No. 1 reason you need to jailbreak your iPhone. In a few seconds, the app turns your iPhone into a wireless 3G hotspot — extremely useful in times when you don't have a Wi-FI connection and need to surf the web with your computer, or even your Wi-Fi-only iPad. That's right — unlimited tethering with no monthly fees. ($20, product page)

Instapaper

As web lovers, Wired.com staff can't appreciate Instapaper enough. The app takes content from web articles (which you've saved using a handy bookmarklet) and strips them of their ugly ads and squint-inducing boxes. As a result, you get web articles displayed with large, clean text — great for helping you concentrate on longer stories that you might not have the time to read during the day. It challenges the popular stereotype that reading websites turns people into superficial dumdums. ($5, download link)

Instagram

Roll the ideas of Flickr and Twitter into one, and you get Instagram. Snap a photo and it goes straight to the web — on the Instagram website, then to your Twitter, Facebook and Flickr accounts. Similar to Twitter, you follow other Instagram users, and you can view all the photos they post in a stream. It's such a simple concept, but getting a purely visual connection with your friends is a real joy when you're sick of reading text updates. (Free, download link)

HeyTell

HeyTell reinvents the walkie talkie, allowing you to exchange voice memos extremely quickly with others using the app. Hit the Record button and release it after you're done dictating your message, and HeyTell sends a push-notification to the recipient's iPhone. It's extremely useful for making simple plans with friends, coordinating with coworkers or just goofing around. (Free, download link)

Foodspotting

Roll Instagram into Yelp into one, and you get Foodspotting. Pop open the Foodspotting app and you can look at photos of dishes at restaurants surrounding you — which can be a lot quicker than reading sarcastic reviews on Yelp. You can contribute to the photos, too: Snap a photo of your food, tag the restaurant and add rate it with "Noms." (Free, download link)

Flipboard

Apple picked Flipboard as its top iPad app of the year, and we agree: It deserves the applause. The app grabs photos, text or video from links from Twitter, Facebook and RSS feeds, and stitches them into a magazine-like layout with neatly arranged panes, lots of white space and beautiful typography. Flipboard is basically a social magazine, breathing with content shared by people you care about. Once it establishes a solid revenue model, this app has the potential to reshape the future of publishing. (Free, download link)

Evernote

Evernote, a popular note-taking service that stores your notes in the cloud so you can access them anywhere, has done it again. Its iPad app displays your notes as nice, big, easily tappable thumbnails. Typing and saving a new note can be done in a snap. And viewing saved notes on the iPad's big screen makes them much more usable and legible than they are on an iPhone or iPod Touch. We've always loved Evernote's web interface and desktop app, but the iPad version really nails it. Evernote is a free download in the App Store. (Free, download link)

Dropbox

Without Dropbox, the iPad wouldn't truly be wireless. ("Connect to iTunes," anyone?) Throw your music, PDFs, photos and videos into your online Dropbox folder and you'll be able to load most of them with the Dropbox iPad app. (Free, download link)

Cut the Rope

Slide your finger to cut a rope, causing a ball to drop to collect stars. It sounds like a brainless game, but Cut the Rope is actually fun, and it gets more and more challenging with every stage. ($1, download link)

Comic Zeal

The iPad’s beautiful display makes reading digital comics more enjoyable than the real thing, and Comic Zeal is a pleaser. It's an open comic-book reader, meaning you can load comics (in .cbz or .cbr format) you download on your computer into the app wirelessly or over USB.

Some people will use this app to read free, open comics; others might use it for piracy. Whatever your use may be, Comic Zeal gives you the freedom of reading any comics you want on your iPad, rather than being tied to a specific universe, like you would be with the Marvel or DC Comics apps. Comic Zeal's controls are nifty and easy to figure out in a snap, and if you close it to use a different app, you can relaunch it and resume the comic where you left off. ($8, download link)

Camera+

Camera+ for the iPhone is another case of a third-party app doing things better than Apple itself. It's an all-in-one photo-taking and editing application that improves on almost every aspect of the built-in camera app. ($1, download link)

Angry Birds

50 million people have downloaded Angry Birds, and it's no mystery why. It has a really sharp style, fits in an accessible game genre and features a physics-based gameplay that creates a ton of different situations to keep the game interesting at various skill levels. The simple premise: You use a slingshot to shoot round birds at fat green pigs. Who wouldn't find this charming? ($1, download link)

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